"We should get our comrades to understand that the twofold basic task of the leading bodies of the Communist Party is to know conditions and to master policy; the former means knowing the world and the latter changing the world." -Mao Zedong, 1941, Reform our Study

First Statement from the Central Committee of Revolutionary Initiative

In dedication to the revolutionary class struggle of proletarians everywhere Revolutionary Initiative (RI) announces the formation of its Central Committee to lead our pre-Party formation in its great historical task of reconstituting a genuine Communist Party in Canada. It is a small step forward in our effort to create a Party to lead the revolutionary upsurge of the multinational proletariat in Canada, but an important one given the proletariat has been without a revolutionary vanguard since the triumph of revisionism in the Communist Party of Canada in the late 1930s. The establishment of our Central Committee is grounded in years of ideological, political, and organizational work, guided by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as applied to the conditions of proletarian class struggle in Canada and utilizing the principles of democratic centralism, criticism and self-criticism, and the mass line.

Over the course of the next five years, Revolutionary Initiative will lay out the ideological, political, and organizational bases for the refoundation of a proletarian revolutionary movement and vanguard in Canada.Ideologically, we must deepen our understanding of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism while creatively applying and developing it in relation to the contradictions in Canadian society. Over this period of time, we will develop a draft Party program for the Canadian revolution, while persisting in the unity-struggle with with other MLM forces in Canada.

Politically, members and supporters of RI must advance and expand the mass struggle in Canada. This is a question of quantity as much as it is a question of quality. The futility of social democracy must be exposed to the masses, as well as all other ideologies holding back the class struggle (anarchism, Trotskyism, revisionism, national chauvinism). Part and parcel to this struggle will be the popularization and development of proletarian internationalism in the mass movement.

The base of recruitment for the revolutionary vanguard must be, first and foremost, the proletariat, particularly the most exploited and oppressed segments.

Organizationally, in tandem with the development of ideological and political prerequisites, RI will establish the basis for transforming itself from a pre-Party formation into a genuine communist party, developing its base of proletarian revolutionary cadre across the country in preparation for the First Congress.

We must emphasize that the task of revolution is not ours alone. While the task of the vanguard is to unite the advanced and revolutionary strata of the proletariat and to guide and lead the revolutionary struggle of the masses, the revolution will be the product of the conscious activity of millions of working class people and their allies in the petty-bourgeoisie. It is the people that are the makers of history and the builders of the new society.

Canada’s multinational proletariat is united by its historical task of putting an end to the parasitic and moribund system of monopoly capitalism in Canada, removing Canada from the international imperialist division of labour, making a revolutionary break towards socialism, and undergoing continuous revolution, internationalist solidarity, and cultural revolutions until imperialism is defeated and communism is achieved. In the spirit of proletarian internationalism, Revolutionary Initiative will work alongside all genuine anti-imperialist forces throughout the world, but most essentially those led by the proletariat and applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

Most importantly for the revolution in Canada, Revolutionary Initiative seeks principled unity with all proletarian revolutionaries and proletarian revolutionary forces, and will struggle with all such forces with humility and camaraderie until we have achieved the most advanced and scientifically-formulated program possible for the Canadian revolution. We seek unity in the revolutionary communist movement in Canada and believe that revolutionary communists must ultimately be united in a single Party. Such organizational unity, however, is not possible with revisionist forces – all those forces peddling some form of class collaboration or another, such as Trotskyism, social democracy, and modern revisionism. We say this with full recognition that the manifold forces of bourgeois society and the imperialist world system necessarily give rise to line struggles within any revolutionary organization, and that the danger of new forms of revisionism arising from within a revolutionary organization is an inescapable danger, especially at new junctures in the class struggle. While struggling to ensure a proletarian revolutionary line, however, we must beware of the left dogmatism that has beset many Marxist-Leninist and Maoist organizations.

Revolutionary Initiative offers a genuine salute to all revolutionary communist forces and individuals who have dedicated years of work in rebuilding the revolutionary communist movement in Canada. Through unity-struggle, the mass line, and the creative application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, we can bring our scattered forces together to make revolution!

Towards the unity of the revolutionary Party-building movement in Canada!